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Christianisation and the dissemination of Christian teaching 713

Orosius’ claim that the Burgundians were ﬁrst converted to Catholicism, and

to see Gundobad as their one and only Arian ruler. His religious stance may

well have been inﬂuenced by that of his Arian mentor and relative by marriage,

Ricimer.

Just as Gregory’s view of the Burgundians as Arians may be misleading,

so too may be his insistence that the Franks moved directly from paganism

to Catholic Christianity. The Franks ﬁrst appear in our sources in the third

century, by which time they werealready settled in the region of the lower Rhine

as immediate neighbours of the Romans. In the fourth century, as a people they

provideda constant (but probably slight) threat to the Empire,while at the same

time individual Franks served loyally in the imperial army. When the frontiers

were breached in 406 the Franks were not among the invaders. Their move

into what had been Roman territory was relatively slow and unadventurous.

Under their king Clovis (481–511), however, they established a kingdom which

ran from the Rhineland to Brittany, and which was soon to expand south into

Aquitaine and then into Burgundy and Provence. It was Clovis also who led

his people to Christianity. According to Gregory, the king’s Burgundian wife,

Chlothild, tried to convert him without success. A crisis in battle, however,

led him to call on her God, and thereafter to discuss Christianity with the

bishop of Rheims, before securing the approval of his people, and converting

to Catholicism. The date, again according to Gregory, was 496.

There may well be something in Gregory’s emphasis on the part played

by Chlothild, and in the notion of a wartime conversion. In other respects

Gregory is arguably either wrong or misleading. A more plausible date for

Clovis’ decision to convert to Catholicism is 507, during a war against the

Arian Visigoths, when he may well have been looking for support from the

Catholic clergy of Gaul and from the emperor inByzantium,whom he probably

assumed – wrongly as it happens – to have been Orthodox. His baptism may

well have followed a year later.

More important than the question of the date,

however, is the evidence that the Frankish leadership did not pass directly from

paganism to Catholicism. Although Clovis had been subjected to the advice

of Catholic bishops from the start of his reign,

a letter written at the time of

his baptism is explicit in saying that he had long been inﬂuenced by heretics,

and his sister Lenteildis is known to have converted to Arianism in the ﬁrst

instance.

Clearly Arians had been inﬂuential at the Frankish court, and the

standard image of the Franks as the one people uncontaminated by heresy

Gregory, Hist. ii.29–31.

Shanzer (1998).

Epistulae Austrasacae 2:Wallace-Hadrill (1962), pp. 166–7.

Avitus of Vienne, Epistola 46:Shanzer (1998), pp. 31–7.

Gregory, Hist. ii.31.

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714 ian wood

in their move to Christianity emerges as nothing more than sixth-century

propaganda.

Norare the Burgundians and the Franks the only peoples for whom Chris-

tianisation entailed hesitation between Arianism and Catholicism. The same

is true of the Sueves in Spain, who switched from Catholic to Arian belief in

the course of the ﬁfth century, probably under pressure from their Visigothic

neighbours.

The Lombards changed doctrine yet more often and for a longer

period of time than any other people.

Identiﬁed as Catholic in 548,

they

were certainly Arian two decades later. Although Arian himself, King Agilulf

(590–616) had a Catholic wife and son Adaloald (616–626), who was deposed

in favour of the Arian Arioald (626–636). Such variation continued for much

of the seventh century. These shifts between Arianism and Catholicism at court

do not seem to indicate extreme hostility between the adherents of the two

doctrines, despite the deposition of Adaloald. According to the Catholic Paul

the Deacon, John the Baptist himself warned a thief against stealing from the

tomb of Rothari (636–652), even though the king had been an Arian.

The

doctrinal choices of the Lombards may have been inﬂuenced less by religious

commitment than by political factors, in particular relations with Rome and

the threat posed at any given moment by the Byzantines in Italy.

By the end of the sixth century the majority of those barbarian tribes which

had established themselves in the territories of the Roman Empire had accepted

Christianity: most, indeed, had become Catholic. Even the Visigoths had

abandoned Arianism in 589.

Some tribes who had remained on or beyond

the borders of the old Empire had also been Christianised. The Rugi of the

Austrian Waldviertel north of the Danube were certainly Arian before the end

of the ﬁfth century.

Further to the north the Thuringian royal family may

have become Catholic as early as the Merovingians. The Thuringian princess

Radegund, who was to become a monastic founder and a saint in the Frankish

kingdom, is not said to have had to convert from paganism or from Arianism

to Catholicism.

Christianity, even Catholic Christianity, may therefore have

spread across the Rhine by the time of the Frankish conquest of Thuringia

in 531.

The one group of peoples who did not accept Christianity shortly after, or

even before, entering what had once been imperial territory were the Anglo-

Saxons. Nevertheless, by the 590s missionaries were being sought from neigh-

bouring Christian peoples by someone within the kingdom of Kent. Requests

On Suevic Chistianity, Thompson (1982), pp. 196–7, 203–6, and see also Barbero and Loring,

chapter 7 above.

Christie (1995), pp. 183–90.

Procopius, Wars vii.34.24.

Paul the Deacon, HL iv.47.

Collins (1983), pp. 53–8.

Eugippius, Vita Severini v.1.

For her Vitae, ed. B. Krusch, MGH SRM ii (Hanover, 1888).

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Christianisation and the dissemination of Christian teaching 715

for religious help seem to have elicited no response from either the British

or the Franks, but news of the Kentish appeal reached Gregory the Great.

Who was behind this local desire to Christianise the people of Kent is nowhere

stated, although one may suspect the involvement of members of the court of

king Æthelberht, who may only have come to the throne after 590.During his

father’s reign Æthelberht had married a Christian Frankish princess, Bertha,

and she had come over with a Christian entourage, which included a bishop,

Liudhard.

It is likely that the queen and her household had some impact on

Æthelberht and his court, although Bede does not say so, and despite a letter of

Gregory which may imply that Bertha could have done more to promote the

faith.

It is even possible that Æthelberht himself was converted to his wife’s

religion before any Christian mission arrived in his country, again despite the

main thrust of Bede’s narrative.

What is certain is that Gregory the Great

responded to the news that missionaries were needed. Mission to the heathen

was a cause that was very dear to him, and he consequently sent Augustine,

together with a number of monks, to supervise the Christianisation of Kent.

In addition Gregory and Augustine between them galvanised the Franks into

supporting the mission: Merovingian kings and clergy were to continue to

show an interest in the Christianisation of the English for some decades. The

British, by contrast, were to remain aloof from missionary activity, at least in

the south-east of Britain, despite the fact that they appear to have been in close

contact with Augustine.

Further west, however, they may have been more

active.

Augustine’s mission to Kent was a success, and Æthelberht’s prestige in

England meant that Essex and East Anglia also accepted Christianity. Politics

would play a major role in the ensuing Christianisation of the English, with

powerful rulers putting pressure on their weaker neighbours, sponsoring them

in baptism, and supporting missions to their kingdoms.

In many respects

the Christianisation of the English, at least as presented by Bede, is a classic

example of Christianisation from the top down. This association of religion

with a monarch, however, had its drawbacks. On Æthelberht’s death there

was a temporary pagan reaction in Kent and a longer-lasting one in Essex.

East Anglia the court seems to have indulged in a period of religious syncretism

under King Redwald. Nevertheless Edwin, a prot

eofRedwald, by whom

he had been assisted to the throne of the Northumbrian kingdom, promoted

Christianity in the north following his marriage to a Christian daughter of

Æthelberht. Again, however, the fate of Christianity was linked to that of

Wood (1994b).

Bede, HE i.24.

Gregory the Great, Register xi.35.

Wood (1994b), pp. 10–11.

Markus (1997), pp. 177–87.

This, at least, is the implication of Meens (1994).

Sims-Williams (1990), pp. 78–84.

Angenendt (1986). See also Thacker, chapter 17 above.

Bede, HE ii.5.

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716 ian wood

the king, and the death of Edwin in battle in 633 was followed by a pagan

reaction, which was only reversed with the establishment of a new Christian

king, Oswald, who had been converted by the Irish while in exile. As a result,

in addition to Romans and Franks being involved in the Christianisation of

the English, the Irish came to play a part as well.

Although Ireland had never been part of the Roman Empire, Christianity

spread across the Irish Sea at a surprisingly early date. Already in 431 Pope Celes-

tine had sent Palladius as bishop to the Irish ‘believing in Christ’.

The estab-

lishment of Christianity amongst the Irish before Palladius’arrival was probably

dependent on trading contacts. There were also Christians, like Patrick, who

had been taken as slaves from Britain. The duration and impact of Palladius’

mission cannot be assessed because of a lack of evidence. Patrick’s work as an

evangelist is much better attested, but the only reliable accounts are those of

Patrick’s own writings.

Here we learn of his capture by Irish raiders while

he was yet a boy, his enslavement and escape, and his subsequent return to

Ireland to work as a missionary. His dealings with Irish kings, with a hostile

clergy back in Britain, and with a British pirate who killed and captured some

of his converts, are also touched on, albeit less clearly than modern historians

would have wished. Patrick himself provides no dates and no unambiguous

indication of the geography of his mission. He was almost certainly active in

the second half of the ﬁfth century, and in the north-east of Ireland. There

seems good reason for thinking that he was buried at Downpatrick.

It is,

however, impossible to correlate Patrick’s own writings with the propaganda

put out by the clergy of Armagh from the seventh century onwards. Indeed, it

is difﬁcult to see how the early work of Palladius and Patrick developed into

the churches that were well established in Ireland by the mid-sixth century.

By that time a major monastic tradition had been established. One of its lead-

ing ﬁgures was Columba, who founded the island monastery of Iona, off the

Scottish coast, in 563,

and it was to this monastery that Oswald turned for

help in the reinstitution of Christianity in Northumbria in c.636.

It was not only among the Anglo-Saxons that the Irish were active. In the

early 590s the monk Columbanus left Ireland for the Frankish kingdom, where

he established several monasteries, of which the most notable was Luxeuil.

Driven out of Burgundy in 610 he made his way ﬁrst to Bregenz and then to

Bobbio, in Italy.

Although Columbanus’ own contribution to the history of

mission is easily exaggerated, the same is not true of that of his pupils. Among

his direct disciples, Eustasius, his successor as abbot of Luxeuil, was responsible

Prosper, Chronicle s.a. 431: Charles-Edwards (1993). On the Christianisation of Ireland, see further

Stancliffe, chapter 15 above.

Ed.Howlett (1994).

Dumville (1993), pp. 184–5.

Annals of Ulster s.a. 563 (4).

Bede, HE iii.3.

For the chronology, Wood (1998), p. 105.

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Christianisation and the dissemination of Christian teaching 717

for undertaking and organising missions to the Bavarians.

Equally important

were a number of leading clerics who were inﬂuenced by Luxeuil in the days of

Eustasius and his successor Waldebert. Among these were bishops, including

Eligius of Noyon, active in the restoration of the church in the north-east

of the Frankish kingdom. There were others who involved themselves in the

missions in Anglo-Saxon England.

Above all there was Amandus, who played

a major pastoral role in promoting Christianity in what is now Belgium, but

who also worked among the Basques and the Slavs. Inﬂuenced by the traditions

of Luxeuil, and also, it seems, by the ideas of Gregory the Great, Amandus

was perhaps the ﬁrst missionary in the West to formulate a notion of universal

mission.

As a result of the work carried out by those inﬂuenced by Luxeuil, the north-

east of the Merovingian kingdom was evangelised in greater depth than had

earlier been the case, and the territories east of the Rhine were also subject to a

considerable degree of Christian inﬂuence. Christianity seems to have survived

since Roman times in Augsburg.

Yetinother parts of Bavaria the evidence for

a Christian church is poor – and the references to Eustasius’ missions are sadly

imprecise. By the end of the seventh century, however, Emmeram, who had

intended to work among the Slavs, had established a church at Regensburg.

Nor does he appear to have been the ﬁrst to do so.

Further north Kilian

was active at W

urzburg before 689, when he was martyred as a result of a

conﬂict over marital practices within the local ruling family.

Some degree of

evangelisation, therefore, had been achieved in Bavaria, as in Thuringia, before

the end of the seventh century. To judge by the linguistic evidence, it had been

effected largely by Franks.

Work had also begun in Frisia. Here it was the Anglo-Saxons who seem to

have led the way. The Northumbrianbishop Wilfrid spent some time preaching

there in 678.

In the following decades other Anglo-Saxons also worked as

missionaries in the region of the lower Rhine. Some of these were the pupils

of the Northumbrian Ecgberht, who was himself ensconced in Ireland.

The

most important of Ecgberht’s pupils was Willibrord.

He too came from

Northumbria. Indeed, before joining Ecgberht he had been a monk of Wilfrid’s

monastery of Ripon. He arrived in Frisia in 690, and was established, with

backing from the Arnulﬁng leader Pippin II, in Utrecht in 696.Hecontinued

Jonas of Bobbio, Vita Columbani ii.8.

Campbell (1986), pp. 49–67;Wood (1991a), pp. 8–9.

Fritze (1969), pp. 78–130;Wallace-Hadrill (1983), pp. 72–3.

Wolfram (1987), pp. 115–16.

Arbeo of Freising, Vita Haimhrammi.

Passio Sanctorum Martyrum Kiliani et Sociorum Eius.

Green (1998a), pp. 325–40, and (1998b), pp. 343–61.

Eddius Stephanus, Vita Wilfridi c.26.

Bede, HE v.9.

Bede, HE v.10–11.

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718 ia n wood

to work among the Frisians until his death in 739, although his mission was

interrupted by periods of war between the Franks and the Frisians, when he had

to retire to his monastery of Echternach on a tributary of the River Moselle.

In 716 he was joined by Wynfrith. The time, however, was one of war, and

Wynfrith returned to Wessex. Three years later he went to Rome, where he

received the name Boniface. Charged by Pope Gregory II with reporting on

religion in Germany, he returned to help Willibrord, which he did until 722,

after which he turned to work in Hesse, Thuringia and even Bavaria. It was

not until 754 that he moved back to Frisia, only to be martyred at Dokkum.

The further reaches of the region were still pagan.

Boniface’s avowed intention was to evangelise Germani, most particularly

the continental Saxons. In fact this was not to be his achievement. Despite

a brief ﬂurry of expectation after Charles Martel defeated the Saxons in 738,

no Saxon mission materialised in the ﬁrst half of the century. Work among

the pagans in Frisia took scarcely four years of Boniface’s long continental

career. Certainly there were pagans in Hesse and Thuringia: notably those for

whom the oak at Geismar was a sacred object.

Nevertheless Boniface’s ener-

gies were devoted more to stamping on some bizarre forms of Christianity

that had developed in the aftermath of earlier missionary work, to estab-

lishing a system of ecclesiastical organisation and to promoting monasticism

east of the Rhine. The greatest of his monastic foundations, Fulda, was to

receive his body after his martyrdom. Like other monastic houses, such as

Luxeuil, Echternach and Corvey, it was at times a point of departure for

mission, and a place of rest for missionaries. It was also, and perhaps rather

more signiﬁcantly, to be one of the major centres of learning in the ninth

century.

The earliest Life of Boniface was probably written at Mainz, where the saint

had been bishop. Mainz and Fulda were central in the propagation of the cult

of Boniface, but they were not alone. A second Life of the saint was written at

Utrecht, possibly in the early ninth century.

Boniface also plays a central role

in the Life of Gregory of Utrecht, written by Liudger, probably between 800 and

809.

This text portrays the Anglo-Saxon, inaccurately, as a great missionary

saint who spent over eleven years in Frisia. It also presents Gregory as one of the

dearest of Boniface’s pupils: not an impression to be gleaned from Boniface’s

own letters. However close Gregory and Boniface may or may not have been,

the former does seem to have been a signiﬁcant patron of missionaries working

in Frisia and northern Germany. Gregory’s biographer and pupil, Liudger, was

active in Frisia and also in the region around M

unster, where he established a

Willibald, Vita Bonifatii c.8.

Willibald, Vita Bonifatii c.6.

Vita (Altera) Bonifatii.

Liudger, Vita Gregorii.

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Christianisation and the dissemination of Christian teaching 719

see.

At much the same time the Northumbrian Willehad undertook mission-

ary work, ﬁrst in Frisia, and subsequently in the district around Bremen, where

he too founded a diocese.

Another of Gregory’s pupils, Lebuin, preached in

Saxony.

His attempts to spread Christianity by peaceful means were ulti-

mately overtaken by forcible Christianisation, which went hand in hand with

Charlemagne’s conquest of the area.

The eighth and early ninth centuries, therefore, saw the creation of a church

organisation in northern Germany. In the ninth century the missionary ﬁeld

was extended to Scandinavia. Willibrord had already visited Denmark,

and

Liudger had wanted to do so, but had been prevented by Charlemagne.

In the

820saScandinavian mission was set up within the context of the diplomatic

involvement of Louis the Pious in the kingdom of Denmark. Ebbo, bishop

of Rheims, initiated the work of evangelisation, which was continued, and

extended to Sweden, by Anskar.

The latter achieved considerable, temporary,

success among both the Danes and the Swedes, despite occasional setbacks, like

the destruction of his German base of Hamburg by Vikings in 845. Rimbert, his

successor in the combined diocese of Hamburg-Bremen, initially continued his

work, but the escalation of Viking activity brought the Scandinavian mission

to a halt. The work of Anskar and Rimbert was a natural development of

the evangelisation of northern Germany. Anskar himself may well have been

the author of an account of the miracles of Willehad.

The collapse of the

Scandinavian mission, therefore, marked the end of a continuous history of

evangelisation, which stretched back into the seventh century and beyond.

Despite the continuity within the process of evangelisation, its history has

to be reconstructed from a variety of sources. Of these, few are concerned to

present a historical account of mission. The Lives of saints provide invaluable

evidence on the activities of speciﬁc individuals, but they are, nevertheless,

works of hagiography with particular spiritual, pastoral and devotional con-

cerns. They rarely have any interest in setting the careers of their subjects within

a wider history of evangelisation. Here the Lives of Gregory of Utrecht, Liudger

and Lebuin are exceptional. Unique is the sustained account of the Christian-

isation of Anglo-Saxons to be found in Bede’s Ecclesiastical History.Noother

historian of the early Middle Ages concerned himself so directly with the evan-

gelisation of a whole people, not even Gregory of Tours, despite the importance

of Clovis’ conversion to his interpretation of the rise of the Merovingians. In

some ways as remarkable as Bede’s work, however, is the Conversio Bagoariorum

et Carantanorum,arelatively short, but invaluable, account of the establishment

Altfrid, Vita Liudgeri.

Vita Willehadi.

Vita Lebuini Antiqua.

Alcuin, Vita Willibrordi c.9.

Altfrid, Vita Liudgeri i.30.

Rimbert, Vita Anskarii.

Anskar, Miracula Willehadi.

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720 i an wood

of the church in Bavaria and Carinthia, written at Salzburg in 871.

The next

work to rival Bede’s would be the late eleventh-century History of the Bishops

of Hamburg,byAdam of Bremen.

The various sources for the early Middle Ages do allow the construction of

a narrative of the Christianisation of the barbarians,

but as the above cases

suggest, it is nevertheless important to recognise their differing and, sometimes,

conﬂicting aims. For instance, Orosius’ reference to the churches of East and

West being ﬁlled with Huns, Sueves, Vandals and Burgundians may provide

an indication of the spread of Orthodox Christianity among those peoples

before 417, but it may equally be no more than an over-optimistic assertion

made by the author in support of his theme, that times were not as bad as the

pagan Romans were insisting. Equally, Gregory of Tours’ accounts ofVisigothic

and Burgundian Arianism and of Frankish Catholicism are almost certainly

determined by his view of the Franks as a ‘chosen people’, whose success was

related to their orthodoxy and God’s favour. So too Bede’s emphasis on the

Augustinian mission, and the absence of any comment on the involvement

of Bertha and Liudhard, may reﬂect a concern to associate the origins of the

Kentish church exclusively with the papacy.

Such bias is also present in the saints’ Lives.

Sometimes they lead to totally

fraudulent assertions. Thus, the Life of the seventh-century saint Wulfram of

Sens made him the leading ﬁgure in the evangelisation of Frisia during the

lifetime of the pagan ruler Radbod.

Unfortunately the account presented

is chronologically impossible. In all probability the author, although writing

about a bishop who really did undertake mission,

altered events in an attempt

to challenge the reputation of Willibrord, whose Life Alcuin had written only

a short time before.

Equally impossible is Liudger’s account of Boniface’s

mission to Frisia, which is extended from three to thirteen years in the Life of

Gregory of Utrecht.Here the author seems to have been intent on providing

Bonifacian origins for churches at Woerden, Achttienhoven and Velzen, and

on creating a model for missionary activity sanctioned by its association with

Boniface.

Other, more political bias may be involved elsewhere. In his account of

Boniface’s work in Thuringia, Willibald attributes the poor state of the church

there to Theobald and Heden, whose unpopular rule had led many to become

subject to the Saxons, while enthusiasm for Christianity had waned and heresy

had ﬂourished.

On the other hand, Heden is also known as one of the

benefactors of Willibrord’s monastery of Echternach,

which suggests that

Conversio Bagoariorum et Carantanorum.

For detailed accounts, Brown (1996); Fletcher (1997).

Wood (1999a).

Vita Vulframni.

Lebecq (1994).

Wood (1991b), pp. 12–14.

Willibald, Vita Bonifatii c.6.

Wampach (1930), nn. 8, 26.

Christianisation and the dissemination of Christian teaching 721

there is something odd about Willibald’s insinuations against him. These may

be explained by the fact that Heden rebelled against the Carolingians and was

consequently driven out of Thuringia.

Both secular and religious politics may

have weighed upon Willibald. As a result his account of Boniface’s activity east

of the Rhine may have led to an underestimation of the achievements of earlier

generations of missionaries, achievements that are only attested in the linguistic

evidence.

More complex issues seem to underlie other problems presented by

Willibald’s narrative. For instance the Life of Boniface depicts its subject as

the founder of four dioceses in Bavaria, but he names only three, Salzburg,

Freising and Regensburg.

The fourth diocese, Passau, he could not name

because its bishop, Vivilo, had already been appointed by Pope Gregory III.

Moreover, of the three that he does name, not one was actually founded by

Boniface. There had been a bishop of Salzburg in the late seventh century,

as there had been of Regensburg, and of Freising, where Corbinian had been

established a generation earlier.

The evidence for Regensburg and Freising is

contained in two Lives written by Arbeo; those of Emmeram and Corbinian.

Both date to the period shortly after Willibald’s composition of the Life of Boni-

face. They suggest that claims and counterclaims over the church in Bavaria

were being made by different ecclesiastical groups. Despite the high regard

in which Willibald’s work is held, indications that the cults of Emmeram

and Corbinian were established before 739 suggest that the general tenor,

if not the detail, of Arbeo’s account of the Bavarian church has much to

commend it.

Other sources present similar problems. All hagiographical texts were com-

posed for speciﬁc reasons. Some were written to promote the cult of the saint,

others to set out particular jurisdictional claims, or to propagate a speciﬁc

monastic ideology or theological position.

Alcuin’s Life of Willibrord is, in

many respects, disappointing as a narrative, because it is constructed not to

recount history, but in order to present a precisely balanced model of a mission-

ary saint as both evangelist and wonderworker. It is only rarely that the aims

of the hagiographer and the requirements of the student of Christianisation

exactly coincide. The narrative evidence for the history of mission, therefore,

needs to be treated with considerable caution.

Despite all the caveats, the basic narrative of the history of Christiani-

sation in the early Middle Ages is clear enough,

although it should be

recognised that concern for the narrative tends to emphasise top-down patterns

Passio Kiliani c.14.

Green (1998a), pp. 325–40, and (1998b).

Willibald, Vita Bonifatii c.7.

Vita Hrodberti:Wolfram (1987), pp. 118–24.

Arbeo of Freising, Vita Corbiniani;Wolfram (1987), p. 125.

Wood (1994a), pp. 307–9.

Wood (1999b).

See Brown (1996); Fletcher (1997).

722 ian wood

of evangelisation, since it is kings and dukes who most attract the attention

of our written sources. The less dramatic work of minor missionaries usually

goes unrecorded – although the outcome of such work, at least, is detectable

east of the Rhine and in western England. It is almost as difﬁcult to establish

what people were converting from, what they were being converted to, and

how this was being achieved. Nevertheless these are all questions that deserve

consideration.

There were probably distinctions between the paganism that continued to

exist among the indigenous population of the Roman Empire, and that fol-

lowed by the barbarians, but there may also have been similarities. There were

certainly features common to paganism and the semi-Christian and heretical

practices which were also the target of some missionaries. Indeed, there is con-

siderable difﬁculty in differentiating between the religious practices of various

pagan groups and semi-Christians.

Evidence for the worship of gods of the

Germanic pantheon in the late and post-Roman period is slight. In a letter to

Boniface, Daniel bishop of Winchester talks of gods and goddesses, without

naming them.

Thor (Donar), Woden and Saxnot are denounced speciﬁcally

in formulae for the renunciation of paganism,

and later Woden appears in Old

English charms.

There are also denunciations of Jupiter, who was equated

with Thor, Mars equated with Saxnot and Mercury with Woden.

The oak

at Geismar in Hesse, which was cut down by Boniface, is said to have been

known as the oak of Jupiter;

in other words it was probably dedicated to Thor.

Further indications of pagan Germanic cults can be found in the association

of individual gods with speciﬁc days of the week: Tiw with Tuesday, Woden

with Wednesday, Thor with Thursday and Frija with Friday

– the equivalent

days in the Roman calendar were associated with Luna, Mercury, Jupiter and

Venus. Place-names also sometimes indicate a site associated with a particular

Germanic god and there are artefacts which may carry iconography alluding to

individual deities. It has been suggested that the so-called bracteates, which are

found in some quantities in north Germany, may be connected with the cult

of Woden.

When all is said and done, however, such interpretations are no

more than hypotheses, and in any case the evidence cannot be taken as proof

that devotion to these particular deities dominated the religion of those tribes

Indiculus Superstitionum et Paganiarum.

Boniface, Ep. 23.

Ed. Boretius (1883), p. 222.

Mayr-Harting (1972), pp. 26–7.

E.g. Indiculus Superstitionum et Paganiarum, ed. Boretius, pp. 222–3.Onthe interpretatio Romana,

see Wood (1995), p. 54.But see Wallace-Hadrill (1983), pp. 18–19, for the possibility that some Franks

may have worshipped Roman gods.

Willibald, Vita Bonifatii, c.6.

E.g. Mayr-Harting (1972), p. 25.

Hauck (1957), pp. 361–401.See also the comments of Axboe (1995), pp. 231–2.